


completely unplanned

by Feather (lalaietha)



Category: Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey, The Losers (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Fire-Lizards, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-16
Updated: 2012-01-16
Packaged: 2017-10-29 15:33:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/321419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalaietha/pseuds/Feather
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jensen has a knack for adapting his orders in ways that get interesting results.</p>
            </blockquote>





	completely unplanned

**Author's Note:**

  * For [niqaeli](https://archiveofourown.org/users/niqaeli/gifts).



> Hopefully, my recipient really meant it when she said crack with dragons was okay! ;) And everyone loves fire-lizards.

There were seriously times when Jensen couldn't figure out why nobody had killed Meron in his sleep yet - be that person one of his servants, one of his holders, one of his crafters or just someone from some other hold who hated him. Of which there was an incredibly sizable supply. 

It wouldn't be that hard, either. The problem with being a complete and total pile of shit was that it got really hard to retain good bodyguards. Or, for that matter, good guards at all - and the alleged bribes of fire-lizards'd only do so much. And pretty much nothing, once the men had got them. 

As he sat in the growing gloom of dusk, still taking in the sad excuse for a Gather and nursing some really, really bad wine - so bad they didn't even bother to put it in a goblet, just a mug - Jensen reflected that it wouldn't be that hard to actually be that guy. The one who went in the window, put the old fuck out of everyone else's misery, and crawled back out again to disappear into the mountains. 

He was really, really tempted. He was so tempted he started mapping out routes up into the Hold and trying to see if he could remember the old schematics of the place so as to figure out where the Thread-sore asshole _was_. A quick change of clothes into a drudge's outfit would get him in the Hold, and then another quick change and some stealth - 

In the end, though, he decided the Colonel would _probably_ not appreciate it if Jensen abruptly reorganized inter-Hold politics without at least checking with him first. 

Instead, he finished his horrible wine and, in harmony with his disguise, hung around some of the fires for a bit of the dancing (although not long, because other than the single obligatory Master there were no harpers to speak of in Nabol, which meant the music was substandard), and eventually headed off to sleep in one of the massed tents. 

He did actually sleep a couple of hours. Then, abruptly, he stopped sleeping, because he could _hear_ what he'd been here, as it happened, to hear. Most of the Gatherers wouldn't notice; those that did probably wouldn't wake for it, and pretty definitely wouldn't recognize it. They weren't weyrbrats turned harpers turned soldiers with a mission that amounted to spying, though. 

When Jensen heard the sound of dragon-wings, he got up and pretended to stumble blearily towards the privy. Halfway there he stepped into a shadow, stripped off the dun and sand coloured clothes he had been wearing and folded them into the flattened pack he'd had strapped around his waist under them, pulled on the dark grey wool face-mask and pulled up the hood, and stepped back out as another shadow, invisible in dark grey and blue in the night. 

Holds like this tended to be _erratically_ alert - someone who'd had his skin stripped recently would be hypersensitive on guard or about noticing anything amiss, probably along with whoever'd heard the shouting; everyone else wouldn't give a damn and wouldn't bother. That meant Jensen kept his eye out for the actual problems and otherwise concentrated on getting up on the roofs. 

His orders were basically three-fold: find out what people _in_ the Hold were saying about Meron and who they might follow if someone got rid of Meron or whatever disease the man'd picked up finished him off; find out if there was contact with the Oldtimers and thus if the Oldtimers were breaking their part of the deal, and finally, find out what was up with all the Nabolese fire-lizards and whether the Oldtimers were responsible for that, too. 

So far, Jensen'd determined that the Nabolese were as eager for their Lord Holder to shuffle off _between_ as anyone else was, that they felt pretty much the same way about any possible claimant (although he figured he had a couple names the miniature Conclave he and his team were working for might want to look into, to see if some kind of blood-claim could be established or completely made up) even if anyone could convince Meron to name one, and that there were fire-lizards, mostly green with a few blues unless the man or woman in question was wearing _very_ expensive clothing, _everywhere._

And the sound of dragon-wings and the distinctive (to Jensen) sound of dragons trying to alight very, very quietly told him that the answer to _are the Oldtimers breaking the terms of their exile_ was also a _oh Threadscore yes_ , which probably meant they were the source of the eggs, too. 

He'd just have to get a little closer to confirm that. Granted, the chances of anyone from High Reaches being in Nabol at night were pretty slim, since word was that T'bor still wanted Meron's skin for a rug, Meron hated everyone and everyone hated him, and nobody from any weyr other than Southern'd breach High Reaches territory without the courtesy of a call, but you never knew. Maybe the fucker'd finally died and the Weyrleader heard about it first. Maybe T'bor'd snapped and was showing up to burn the place down - Jensen wouldn't blame him, frankly. Two dead queens, one mindless queen-rider and one - well, rumour had it she was doing better, so there was that, but still. 

Jensen's thoughts lingered on that and other fairly grim thoughts while he slid carefully down the roof of one of the stables and, keeping flat, slid over to where he might be able to see the only space this side of the Hold big enough and flat enough to hold dragons as old as any from Southern'd be. Old dragons meant no sharp turns and no acrobatics: they needed to land straight and take off easy, and Jensen smiled slightly to himself, breathing _bullseye_ as he looked down to the torches of the yard and the dragons there, blue and brown, riders dismounting as Jensen watched. 

The group of men who came out from under covers, followed by the drudges, did not include Meron. The drudges went right to work unloading the stuff from the nets the dragons carried, cringing every time the brown moved. The blue just sat still - older, Jensen thought, and very tired. 

The weyrbrat in him kind of wished that getting rid of the pain in the ass riders didn't automatically mean making the dragons miserable. But there wasn't anything he could do about that. 

He wasn't close enough to hear anything being said, and that was a problem. After a few seconds' hesitation, he sighed and worked his way around to the other corner of the roof. 

The biggest risk wasn't even the men down below - it was the dragons either noticing him, or even deciding to notice him. They might not, if he was just a body lying flat. Dragons didn't understand everything humans did, especially browns, blues and greens, and unless he felt like a threat from the dragon's point of view, they might feel no reason to notice him any more than they noticed the poor bastards who were dragging the goods out of the carry-nets. 

Moving might just make them notice. 

So Jensen tried to make his mind as blank and uninteresting as a drudge's as he made his way over to that other corner, and hoped he wouldn't have to move again. 

Once, for a split second, his heart literally stuttered as the blue's head turned just slightly towards Jensen as he settled into his new spot. But then the blue snorted, shook his head a little and settled down with a sigh. His rider didn't even glance over. 

It took a few seconds for Jensen's heartbeat to slow and quiet enough to hear anything else; when it did, though, if he strained, he could hear the men talking. 

By the time they were done talking, and the Oldtimers went back to their dragons to take off, and the hold-men were muttering about arrogant sons-of-bitches, Jensen had already slid back down to the ground and hidden himself in a shadow, with a whole new plan. 

The Colonel was going to kill him, but better to ask forgiveness than permission, right? 

 

The meeting had been deep in the corridors of Fort Hold, glow-baskets brought in by drudges to rooms only just cleaned out, by the smell of them. Clay had taken his seat, demurred at a glass of wine, and taken measure of the men and two women sitting in the room with him. 

Fort, Ruatha (and Clay wondered if the boy Jaxom knew anything about this, or if he were still neck-deep in the dark), Benden, Telgar, and Lemos. And the latter represented by its Lady, not its Lord, and Clay had been pretty sure that had been by way of letting him in on a secret. The world thought of Lady Famira as pretty, sweet and not much else, but the eyes that had assessed Clay as he sat down had been calm, intelligent and completely unexpected. Her half-brother hadn't seemed to be surprised at her presence, either; Clay had nodded to Lord Larad as he settled himself. The other woman in the room had been barely more than a girl, but Clay had been willing to bet good money she was someone's half-blood, and acting as spy somewhere else - Harper Hall, maybe, or the Smith Hall. She'd sat on the floor with her legs crossed and said nothing. 

Lords Groghe, Lytol, Raid and Larad had all been there waiting for him, so Clay had given a small salute and said, "My lords," as he sat down. He wasn't good at ceremony that wasn't strictly military, and he knew they knew that, so there hadn't been need for more. "And my Lady," he'd added, a little belatedly; Lady Famira had only smiled briefly. 

"I am here as my husband's proxy," she'd said, her voice higher than he expected. He'd wondered what her excuse for being at Fort was, but figured it was none of his business. "He assures me that you're an extremely straightforward man, Colonel, so with my Lord Groghe's permission, I think we can move straight to the point?" 

Now, waiting in the dark and hoping Jensen hadn't got himself killed (but knowing that more than one of them would have attracted attention, that his own face was too well known, that either Roque or Pooch would be damn conspicuous in Nabol and, finally, that Cougar was far too likely to suffer a snap of self-control and kill Meron), Clay turned that point over in his head a bit again. 

It disgusted him more than a bit that a worm like Meron managed to stay the knot of so much contention. The man was scum with far too high an estimation of his own intelligence, and he wasn't even very _good_ at his conniving. Just good enough to make a mess for everyone else, without getting anywhere himself. Fax - well, Clay had hated the bastard with the fire every Ruathan had carried with them until the Benden Weyrleader'd finally killed him, but at least you had to admire his audacity, his planning, and the sheer force of will that had made so many men follow him. 

But Meron . . . nothing to him, except apparently a slimy attractiveness some women who should know better fell for, and yet he'd managed to kill two Benden-hatched queens, agitate everyone until some Benden rider made a buggering-stupid attempt to go to the Red Star and nearly died from it, and now - 

_"Rumour has far, far more fire-lizards in Nabol than should be possible,"_ Larad had said. _"Fire-lizards and other trade-goods he shouldn't be able to get, even if we assume -"_

 _"As we do,"_ Warder Lytol had added with profound cynicism; Larad had nodded in acknowledgement. 

_"- which we do, that weasel Nessel is smuggling or letting his holders smuggle in everything he can get past the Weyr. Luxuries and staples."_

_"Despite what some might think,"_ Lady Famira'd spoken up then, _"we are relatively unconcerned that Meron _has_ so many fire-lizards, or so much expensive dried fruit. While the little creatures are certainly desirable friends - "_ and there she'd smiled at Groghe, _"- and Ancients know there are people of touchy pride who are . . . dissatisfied, shall we say, with how they've been handed out . . . "_ She'd spread her hands. Her half-brother had nodded. 

_"You're concerned about the how,"_ Clay had said. And because while he was happy to work this kind of covert operation but didn't have much time for hints-and-whispers politics - and given who'd been there - he'd asked, _"Wouldn't the Weyrs and the Harper be looking into this?"_

Raid and Lytol'd both looked seriously uncomfortable, and the girl sitting on the floor had started examining her hands like she'd never seen them before. Groghe'd been the one to reply. 

_"The Harper answers to his own agenda,"_ he'd said, bluntly _"Good man, but there it is. As to the Weyrs, they have their own business to attend to. Meron answers to the Conclave, or bloody well should. We need to know what he's doing and how, and as quietly as possible."_

Benden's Lord Holder and Ruatha's Warder had still looked uncomfortable, but Clay could only assume they assented. 

So far, the Losers had been able to confirm that while Nessel was smuggling as much as he could, it wasn't enough to explain anything. And that Nabol was full of fire-lizards - mostly green. Now they waited. 

The unspoken fear, of course, was that the fucking Oldtimers were Nabol's source of - well, everything it had, and the unspoken fear behind _that_ was what Benden might do if it found the idiots in the North again. Clay had nothing against the Benden Weyrleaders, more or less approved of what they did, but the Weyrwoman had a temper like Threadscore and the Weyrleader had pride you could bounce rocks off - and sometimes made a rock of his head. Hard to tell what they'd do if they got it too far in their heads - and for that matter, hard to tell what those idiot Oldtimers would do, given what they'd done already. 

Clay wasn't sure what the hell the little conspiracy of Lords Holder meant to do if Southern Weyr was how Meron got his goods, but that was their problem, not his. Maybe they'd just like to know when to duck and not come out till the firestone ran out. 

From the darkness that had begun to shade into pre-dawn grey there came the sound of horn clicking quietly against horn: the signal from Cougar that Jensen was in sight. As the light started to reveal the unpleasant, rocky landscape around them and Pooch shifted out of his half-doze where he sat propped against the rock, Clay stood up and rolled his shoulders to get the kinks out and meet his corporal, ready to find out just how bad it was. 

 

As it happened, Clay didn't actually like giving dressings-down in general. First of all, he kind of hated chewing people out. Being a lieutenant-colonel meant that you were supposed to be beyond having to chew people out, because that's what sergeants were for, even if everyone seemed to have forgotten what their _armies_ were for, just because deadly parasites were falling from the sky and dragons were flying around all over the place.

Second of all, it was work, finding the right words and the right tone of voice. A lot of women in Clay's life had accused him of being lazy, but shells, it was _efficiency_ , not laziness. A fondness for elegantly minimal effort. An admiration for nothing being wasted, including sweat - even metaphorical sweat.

Thirdly though, and most importantly, it meant _something had gone wrong_ , something not attributable to the sheer ornery-mindedness of the universe in general and sheer stupid chance. _That_ was a problem, especially when the situation mostly involved hand-picked men in a specially trained team. The entire point was to have _nothing_ go wrong if you could help it. 

So Clay had a general aversion, one he'd admit to. 

Still. This particular dressing-down was sure as shit not made any easier by the fact that behind Clay Roque sat almost convulsed on a rock, laughing his ass off, tears damn near pouring down his face, or the fact that Cougar's mouth kept twitching. It undermined Clay's attempt for some kind of tone, and shells knew Jensen saw it. 

Clay sighed. He rubbed a hand over his face, and then scraped his fingers through his hair. The pre-dawn had given way to sunrise by now and the way he sat, Clay got sunrise full in the eye. It made him squint, which didn't help either. 

He sat up a bit, leaning on the hand resting on his right knee. "Jensen," he said, knowing he sounded tired rather than angry, "I actually remember the orders I gave you, word for word." 

"Me too, sir," Jensen said, doing a decent impression of a serious demeanour. At least the kid made the effort. 

"I told you," Clay went on, pretending the corporal hadn't interrupted, "to go down there, collect rumours about what Meron's been doing, if there are as many eggs as rumour says, whether anyone's seen any dragons, and anything else you could find out." 

"I did that - " Jensen said, but Clay drove over top of him. 

"Nowhere in there," he said, and gestured with the hand he didn't have planted on his own knee, "did I say _steal two fucking pots of fire-lizard eggs._ " 

He let his voice rise maybe a bit too much there; Pooch made a sharp _shh_ -ing sound and gestured to keep it down, still scanning the horizon. At least someone was taking this seriously. 

The kid looked only mildly abashed when he replied, "We-ell. It was kind of a theft of opportunity. A sort of . . .elaboration on your orders, taking into account circumstances of which you would necessarily be unaware."

That set Roque off again, the asshole. At least he could laugh quietly; otherwise, they'd already have Meron's soldiers up their asses. Not that Meron had many that you could really dignify with the name _soldier_ , but numbers had their own quality, and the slimy bastard had more than five men hired to hit people with clubs and stick them with swords and spears. 

"They are coming from the Oldtimers, sir," Jensen said, all amusement dropped with the words, before Clay could continue. Jensen held up the pots he had. "I got these more or less straight off dragonback. There were a bunch of others, too; the bastards are bringing in green clutches, and Meron's underlings don't know any better." 

"Does he?" Clay asked, and Jensen nodded. 

"These are a gold's, according to the steward. Didn't say, but I figure they gotta be bribes, and I can't think who for." 

Nessel, maybe, Clay thought and kept to himself. Bargen, maybe - the High Reaches Lord Holder was standoffish and cool as _between_ , as wary of the new Weyrfolk as he'd been of the old ones, and High Reaches wasn't very active in looking for fire-lizard eggs of their own. Maybe Meron thought he could build up his own conspiracy. Or maybe they were meant to lure craftsmasters back to his hold; Clay could see that, too. Not that any of the targets of the bribes would have any reason to keep faith with the idiot once they had their eggs, but maybe Meron had blackmail, too. 

Clay suppressed a sigh. "How many?" he demanded. 

"Ten, if all the eggs survived _between_ ," Jensen replied. "Couldn't tell you that - at least some of'em are still warm, I checked, but I couldn't check all of them and I can tell you the Oldtimers don't care that much." He shrugged. "Everything's expendable to them, as long as they get what they want." 

Nobody else could quite get the same amount of contempt into the tone they used to talk about the Oldtimers as weyrfolk, current or prior; Clay'd noticed that. Not even the holders or crafters who'd lost daughters. They hated more, but the disgust and contempt of anyone born in a weyr or living there defied description. 

"As interesting and entertaining as this is," Pooch said, from his perch, "we should probably continue this conversation elsewhere." He jerked his head in the direction of the hold. "I don't see anyone yet, but they've got to have noticed the eggs are missing by now." 

He jumped down and swung up his pack. "I'm not in that much of a hurry to see the inside of Nabol's cells, if you know what I'm saying. Leave'em here for Meron's men to find."

The idea might have been tempting, might have even seemed common scored sense despite the dismay on Jensen's face, if it hadn't been for the flat, hard " _No_ ," that came from Cougar's direction, the kind of no that Clay had long ago learned to recognize as implying a hard line, one that would cost him his marksman to cross. 

Everyone looked at him. "They'll die," he said, still flat. 

Roque finally got ahold of himself at that, probably recognizing the same thing in Cougar's tone as Clay did. He wiped a hand down his face and jerked his chin at the pots. "How long?"

Cougar frowned. He leaned over to the closest one; it took a minute of fiddling, but he got the top unlatched and open. He dug his hand down carefully into the sand and stayed there for a second, presumably with his fingertips on the shells. Then he pulled his hand back out and said, "Two, maybe three days." He added, "This sand won't stay hot enough for long." 

"You sure?" Pooch asked, looking uneasy.

"I know how shell feels, three days to hatching," Cougar replied, and Pooch dropped it. Everyone usually did; Clay'd never got around to telling anyone where Cougar'd come from, about the dead dragon left behind, and as far as he knew no one'd ever asked. But none of his guys were stupid either. 

"Alright, sounds like we've got two choices," Roque said, standing up. "We take'em back and make sure Nabol's people find'em, or we take'em with us and find someplace warm and a bunch of food." He shrugged, catching Clay's eye. "Out of the two choices, number one sounds like the kind of thing that gets a man shot, colonel."

Keeping his mouth shut on curses about idiot corporals and their impulses, as well as their probable ancestry, Clay nodded, making the decision. "Let's move out," he said, as he stood up. "Jensen, you got'em, you get to carry'em. Our ride isn't here for two days, Losers, and we've got no way to call them any earlier, so lets find some caves to get friendly with."

Out of the corner of his eye, Clay saw that although Jensen did take both pots, rigging their straps criss-cross over his shoulders, when Jensen went to take his own pack Cougar'd already swung it across _his_ shoulders and ignored Jensen's querying gesture. The marksman didn't say anything, either; then again, he'd already said more about these eggs than he usually did in a day. Not talkative, Cougar. 

Obviously, at least some of his feelings about dragons spilled over to their tiny cousins. Well, hell. Didn't that dead queen's rider have some of the fire-lizards? He was pretty sure he'd heard something about them even stopping the girl from trying to re-Impress that once - and Clay figured that was probably for the best, considering how quiet (even for him) Cougar got when it'd been mentioned, and how doggedly determined the sergeant had been to get drunk that night.

Clay wasn't sure where those thoughts were taking him, or if he wanted to go there, so he let them go. When Roque fell in beside him, the glance Clay's second gave Cougar, and the thoughtfulness of his look, they both suggested to Clay that he was having similar thoughts. 

But what the man said was, "I always kind of wanted one of those things. Fire-lizard, I mean."

Clay grunted. "I didn't." That was only a small lie: he'd wanted one as a young boy, everyone did. But that didn't count. 

Roque didn't leave it alone. "You remember that friend of mine, back in Ruatha, the harper? He says you can train'em, if you're careful - says their little song-girl did with hers."

Clay shot his second-in-command a wry look. "I'm not sure I trust a harper's idea of 'trained', Roque, d'you?"

Roque shrugged, looking amused. "If some little sea-holder girl can do that much, we can do better."

Clay shook his head. "I'll just keep hoping they stay in the fucking shell until _after_ our friendly dragonrider gets back, if it's all the same to you. Bounty on eggs for the Lord Warder to spread around sounds better to me than some damn miniature dragon flitting around my head."

And much, much better, he thought, than trying to feed and hide the stupid hatchlings long enough for them not to all wind up getting killed.

*****

Pooch tried hard not to want to smack Jensen's head into the rocks, but it took a lot of effort. Recon, he wanted to say. Intelligence-gathering. That's what we're here for. What do you do? Go and steal fire-lizard eggs. What the hell is wrong with you?

Of course, that was kind of pointless. And to be totally fair - which Pooch did not feel like being, but which his conscience prodded him towards - Pooch couldn't say for sure he'd've passed up the opportunity, although he'd like to think he'd have more sense. 

Nabol's landscape wasn't Pooch's favourite. If you were under tree-cover it was chill, there were damn biting flies everywhere if you stopped, and Pooch wasn't actually that much of a fan of evergreen-smell. Plus, the ground underfoot was either full of roots and slippery moss and lichen, or grit-wet-sand and gravel, which were just as bad for footing.

Jensen didn't seem to mind carrying what had to be at least a dozen pounds if not a lot more of sand and egg; after a few minutes, he even came up along the higher rocks where Pooch was walking. 

"Oh come on," Jensen said, in one of his joking-wheedling tones (of which he had many). " _Fire-lizards_ , man."

"Yeah," muttered Pooch, "and if we're lucky, they'll stay in the shell until the fucking dragon-rider gets here, and we'll get the bounty and not get killed." 

"You," Jensen informed him, "are _working_ to keep yourself cranky. Come on." 

Pooch walked on without responding, at least until Jensen tried, "I bet the Igen-girl would like you better if you had a fire-lizard." When Pooch turned to glare, Jensen just grinned. "Tell him, Coug." 

"Can't hurt," Cougar said, which happened to be almost amazing, considering how much he'd said at the rendezvous point. 

"Shut up about the girl at Igen," Pooch said, struggling to stay annoyed. "Besides, she's not a girl. She's a woman." 

"I knew you liked her," Jensen said, cheerfully, and then darted out of range of the smack Pooch aimed at him. That was the problem with people who grew up in the Weyrs, Pooch decided. They were way too good at dodging the righteous cuffs to the ear they so richly deserved. 

"Meron shouldn't have them," Cougar said, and though it came out less flat and dark than a lot of what their comrade said, there wasn't the slightest bit of give to that. 

And Pooch couldn't argue the point anyway. "Granted," he sighed. 

"Don't worry," Jensen said, slapping him on the back. "We'll have you back to the hot sands if Igen and its lovely tanner-journeywoman with all the bits you need to enjoy it." 

Then he ducked again, Pooch rolled his eyes, and they went back to following the Colonel and Roque up the hill. 

 

Roque found the cave; Roque had an instinct for caves Cougar'd never seen matched, and occasionally felt almost supernatural. At first, he didn't really notice it; his first concern was getting enough fallen branches and other available waste-wood to get a fire going and get the sand-filled tubs right up near it. He'd started to worry. The sand stayed warmer than he'd feared, packed into the carrying tubs, but it was still coming on not-warm-enough. 

Not until he'd done that, checked the eggs and directed Jensen to keep them turning, to let the heat in all over, did Cougar bother to look at where they'd ended up hiding. 

There wasn't anything to complain about. There rarely was. The entrance wasn't obvious - you'd have to know it was there to find it, or walk almost right up to it - but it was still big enough for the five of them without stinking of human too fast. 

"I'll go for water," Pooch volunteered. "And we're gonna need meat, if those things are gonna hatch any time soon." His voice sounded more resigned to that than he'd been an hour and a half ago, and maybe hid a tiny note of anticipation at the idea that they would hatch, that these hatchlings would end up theirs. 

Mostly, Cougar pushed that thought away. The ache was less than the bone-deep rejection of either leaving the eggs to cool and die, or of leaving them for the Nabolese bastard. Life was full of that kind of choice: no good answers, and choosing what tore at you the least. 

Clay claimed hunting duty; Cougar suspected the colonel just needed to kill something. Roque settled down with his bedroll under his head, a little ostentatiously - but he might be tired. They'd had to fight the Healer to get her to certify him fit for the mission, after that round of fire-head. By making it into a joke, it wouldn't be a weakness. 

Cougar left Jensen with the eggs and went firewood hunting; none of them brought axes, didn't figure they'd need them: they were all accustomed enough for cold camps. But that meant gathering what was already there, or what a sword could hack off without taking on too much damage. That took longer than finding a couple of saplings, taking them down and then hiding the fresh cuts with dead wood and fallen branches. 

When he got back, Roque was asleep, the other two were still gone, and Jensen drowsed where he sat - but only drowsed. Even without Cougar making a sound, after a few seconds Jensen roused and turned both tubs around, keeping their straps clear of most of the sparks. He only spared a quick glance as Cougar dumped one armful in the corner and then went back for the other piles. 

Jensen was drowsing again when Cougar came back from the last trip (for now). Cougar tapped him on the shoulder; Jensen only startled a little, and Cougar jerked his head towards the two odd circles Jensen'd marked out with rocks - not the one around the fire, which was sense, but the bulges outwards to each side. 

"Oh," Jensen said, then yawned, "I figured once we had some good coals I'd rake'em out into that, take the lids off the tubs and put the sand in the lids, put the eggs in the sand. So we can see'em better. I mean - " he tapped the tubs, "I know they're not ready, but you'd have a hard time telling if one of them started hatching right now." 

"Smart," Cougar said, and pulled his own bedroll off his pack. 

"Don't think we'll have a problem, either," Jensen went on, casual, but still the kind of talk he started when he was nervous but not _so_ wound up that he went silent and waited for the enemy strike. "Meron'll probably assume one of his own people took them and hid them - tear his hold apart. Or search everyone leaving the Gather. It'll take them at least two days after they realize the eggs are gone to start searching the woods - and they'll probably search towards the road, not away from it." 

He was probably right. Cougar didn't say anything but then really, Jensen wasn't talking to have anyone really respond. If Roque hadn't already been asleep, he'd've been telling Jensen to shut up, and Jensen'd've been having his cheerful little conversation with himself and ignoring that. 

"The thing is," Jensen went on, "I keep thinking, having a fire-lizard'll be great - I can send messages and little presents to my niece, and she'll be able to send'em back! She'll be able to tell me if she ever gets picked as a - about stuff in her life that's happening." The correction, the avoidance of the sentence _picked as a Candidate_ , could _almost_ be read as a stumble of thoughts faster than words. It wasn't, of course, but it could be read that way. 

By now, Cougar had a lot of practice shutting down any thought of Hatching Ground sand. He was good at it. Almost good enough. 

"Then I think," Jensen continued as if nothing had happened, which it hadn't, "the downside is, my mother." 

At that, Cougar almost felt the distraction, and the touch of a smile. Most Lower Cavern women, if anything, horrified Holder women with their apparent unconcern about danger to their kids. Jensen's mother seemed to feel she needed to make up for that, or maybe she'd just been accidentally gifted with all their protective instincts. She was as bad as a gold over a clutch. 

"Did I tell you what Ethia did last time I was there?" Jensen asked, and then he was off, about some complicated game that was in vogue around the weyrbrats now. The flow of words was a good distraction. 

When there were coals, they did rake them aside and set up the modified sand-cradles; about the time they were finished, water and meat arrived with Pooch and the colonel, and Roque woke up. 

Then, almost inevitably, someone pulled out a deck of cards. The wagers this time had to be promissory: nobody had any extra weapons or trinkets with them - or any money, for that matter - but that happened some times. 

 

When you have time you weren't expecting, you use it to sleep, to eat, to chase company if it was around, and to mend your gear. Every soldier knew that, and that's mostly what they did over the course of the next day and a half. That and gamble and wait for the eggs. 

R'nal, their eventual pick up out of these hills, did have his own fire-lizard, and apparently once one of the things knew you, they didn't have to really know where you were to find you - as long as you knew where you were. Or something. Roque didn't understand it, to be honest and had cut Jensen off the last time he'd tried to explain, because frankly, Roque didn't care either. The little green thing could find them, that meant it didn't matter where they were and they didn't need a formal rendezvous point with their ticket out, that was all that mattered. 

Frankly Roque wasn't convinced Jensen actually understood it either, but people out of weyrs always had to try to prove to the world they knew more about dragons - and fire-lizards, now - than anyone else did. It was a pride thing. Roque could understand that. 

Clay tried to pretend he wasn't watching the eggs as much as the rest of them, and Roque didn't bother to pretend he didn't notice when the colonel failed miserably. Clay might even have himself convinced he didn't care one way or the other, or that being around for this hatching was even a pain in the ass, but Clay could lie to himself quite easily. 

He wasn't anywhere near as good at lying to Roque. Not by this point in their lives. In their careers. 

Cougar said they could expect all the eggs to hatch, that as far as he could tell none of them had been hurt either by _between_ or by being hauled about. When Pooch'd asked which ones were likely to hatch what, Cougar'd shrugged. 

"Here's something I don't get," Pooch'd added. "How come queen dragon-eggs are gold if queen fire-lizard eggs don't look any different, except maybe being bigger?" 

Nobody had an answer for him, and beside, it was his turn to bet, so the subject dropped. Roque'd shot Cougar a sideways glance to see if it bothered him, but the marksman seemed not to pay any attention. 

Probably a lie, but if he was doing fine keeping his own troubles under his hat, so to speak, Roque wasn't going to bring it up. 

He'd never quite got around to asking Clay, and would sure as hell never ask Cougar, which colour Cougar's lost dragon'd been. Not a bronze; Roque was pretty sure of that. Cougar didn't have the outgoing pride that, in the better ones, stopped just short of arrogance. Probably not a brown either, because when it came down to it, Cougar wasn't suited to be someone's 2-I-C and according to a Search-rider Roque'd got drunk with once the dragon always knew what to pick. 

That left blue and green, and Roque couldn't pick between them. Not that it really mattered, beyond pure curiosity. 

It was cool enough in the cave not to worry about whether or not the three wherries Clay'd brought down would spoil, which should be enough food for them and the baby lizards, especially since they still had their other rations. They'd each taken turns cutting hunks off the carcasses, because Jensen in all his knowledge insisted it'd be much easier and better to hand-feed smaller pieces than to just let the things dig in themselves. Roque supposed that made sense. 

 

It was the squawk of the first hatchling that woke every single one of them, all of them primed for the slightest noise. Jensen fumbled around in the dark for the lantern while Cougar went immediately to build up the fire. 

Roque just went for the sound. 

It wasn't so much that he'd been looking for the first one, or anything remotely like it - he mostly worried that the stupid little baby thing would fall out of the sand to the fire. He could hear the other eggs rocking, too, but he caught the little dark shape just as the light of the lantern flared and dazzled him just that little bit. 

The hatchling cried and scrabbled at his arm with talons still so small and soft they only scratched, didn't tear. It flailed around with wet wings and cried again, just as the second egg started to really crack. 

Roque slid back along the floor and reached over to grab a handful of the meat they hadn't been too careful about keeping off the cave floor. The infant lizard flung itself - no, himself, there was enough light now from the fire and the lantern and the baby's hide was dry enough that he could see it was blue - flung himself at the handful and started to gulp them down. 

When he glanced up, Jensen had one damp brown hatchling in hand, and a second egg within arm's reach; Pooch was trying to feed three crying mouths; and the colonel was staring in a kind of soft-faced awe Roque had never seen on him before at the little gold in his hands, who ate everything Clay gave her and then demanded more. 

Cougar sat back. Hung back, really, Roque thought. 

Then the little blue in the crook of his arm wailed again. Roque ignored the others, his eyes dragged back to the tiny thing he grabbed more wherry to feed. Roque watched the fast-whirling eyes, red and orange, but fading to yellow as it ate and ate and almost seemed to eat as much as it weighed. 

He felt rather than saw the second one, the one that had apparently hatched, looked around and then decided to crawl over here, that Roque was the best chance for food. The blue only protested a little as Roque settled him on one knee and reached to take hold of the other, offering the new hatchling food. 

Bronze: this one was bronze. And pushier even than the blue, so much so that Roque found himself laughing at the little thing's imperious cries, until they were smothered by food. 

This time, when he looked up it was to see Jensen scooping the last two eggs up and holding his hands out to Cougar. Cougar pulled back. One of the two eggs - the one in Jensen's right hand - split open and deposited another brown almost onto Jensen's lap; Jensen shoved the remaining egg at Cougar with a, " _Take it_ ," that had a lot more authority than Jensen generally showed. Then the kid had to turn back to the new arrival, which clung to his arm and cried. 

In the quiet of the others, all more or less sated and starting to fall asleep except Jensen's third brown, who was being stuffed full of food, the squall of the very last hatchling as it shook free of the shell into Cougar's lap seemed very, very loud. 

The little green cried, and then it managed to right itself; it looked up at Cougar and almost fell over, its tiny talons digging into his shirt; it cried again. 

Cougar mostly stared. His hands had cupped around her, to keep her from falling over, but after that he seemed frozen and staring as the little thing keened at him. 

Roque felt almost like he didn't dare breathe. Green, the back of his mind told him: for Cougar to react quite like that, the dead dragon had to be green, too. Cougar never froze. 

It was Clay who slid his gold carefully onto the bedroll beside him - Pooch's, that same back-of-mind voice told Roque - and got up to bring food to Cougar, since Cougar seemed to be frozen. Jensen took hold of one of Cougar's wrists, turned the palm up, deposited some of the wherry-meat into it and pushed the hand towards the hatchling. She gave a little sound that was almost like a squeak and went for the food. 

After a few more seconds, Cougar started to move. Mechanically, he fed her. 

The green paused, every few bites. She looked up at him and made what would probably be a crooning sound when she wasn't so small and new, and then went back to eating. 

Roque shot a look at Clay, and Clay met it with an expression that said, _Yeah, I've got no idea if this is a good thing either._ When Roque looked at Jensen, the kid mostly seemed concerned about getting his three - three, him and Pooch both - settled onto the bedroll in a way that let him get in it, while Pooch looked at the three curled creatures in his lap (two blues and a green, Roque noted) with an incredulous expression. 

It took a moment. It took a few minutes, actually. But about the time that there seemed to be more sleepy croon than feeding, Cougar's other hand moved and he stroked the green's tiny head and neck. She arched at it, finished one more piece of the wherry, and then flopped over to sleep on his hand without any ceremony at all. 

Roque looked at his own two - _his own two!_ the inner voice of the boy of so long ago crowed - one sleeping on each of his crossed legs. Absently, he tallied: three for Pooch and Jensen, one for Cougar, one for Clay, two for him. One gold, one bronze, three blues, three browns and two greens. 

As Roque watched, Cougar seemed to curl in around his green, ever so slightly, staring at her with almost the same fascination Roque felt but couldn't figure out what to do with. 

Or even what to call it. 

Clay stroked the back of his curled-up, sleeping queen and then looked at them all and laughed. "Fucking shells," he said. "We look like we've been through a war." It made Roque look around, paying attention to that this time, and he had to laugh too. The place looked a little like a butcher's hall on a bad day, but shards, Roque figured this was worth it. 

He looked over at Clay and said, "You just had to get the boss lizard, didn't you." 

Clay rolled his eyes.


End file.
